Postcards From Pecs: Alexandria Quigley

Alexandria Quigley is playing her second season in EuroLeague Women with Pecs 2010 of Hungary. She also has experience of playing in the WNBA having played for Phoenix, Indiana and San Antonio. Allie is writing for FIBA Europe to give us her insight on the 2011 EuroLeague Women season. Photographs by Viktor Rébay.

Ciao from Pecs!

How's everyone doing? Things are okay over here. We are nearly halfway through the EuroLeague Women season (or at least the Qualifying Round) and we currently have a record of 1-3.

Last time I wrote, we were about to play USO Mondeville of France at home. We usually play so well at home but things didn't exactly go as we had planned. We made far too many mistakes on both defence and offence to ever really put ourselves in a realistic position to win the game.

It was tough to lose at home but we had to move on and get ready for the next game. We bounced back in the Hungarian league with an big win against Gyor on their home court. This was really important for the Hungarian Championship because they hadn't lost a game yet either. It also felt good to get back on track and play well together.

Unfortunately, it didn't carry over to our next EuroLeague Women game against Good Angels Kosice last week. We were neck and neck for the first three quarters but completely fell apart in the fourth. It's really tough to play 30 good minutes of basketball and then just let it all go.

I think we've learned a lot from these couple of losses in EuroLeague Women. We know we can compete and are good enough to win these games - we just have show it for the full 40 minutes.

So just to reiterate, we are 1-3 and currently sit fifth in Group A. We definitely have a hill to climb if we want to finish in the top four. We know it's not impossible; we just have to take it one game at a time.

Of course, it's not going to be easy because we start this uphill battle with the best team in Group A - Cras Basket Taranto. We know they have a really good team so we must bring our best game when we make the trip to Italy this Thursday.

I'm excited for this trip to Italy not only for the opportunity to get a win, but also to see one of my best friends, Brooke Smith! She plays for Taranto and we were team-mates in Phoenix during the summer of 2008 and 2009. It will be nice to catch up and see a familiar face. I love pizza so maybe she'll take me to a nice Italian spot (hopefully you're reading this Brooke ha ha!)

Aside from playing games, we haven't had much time to do anything else lately. We've been travelling a lot and playing every third day or so and it feels nice to just relax at home in Pecs and to be sleeping in my own bed.

Word on the Hungarian streets is that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in Budapest filming a movie. We were in Budapest a little while ago and I was hoping to catch a glimpse of them. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and we were playing at home yesterday in Pecs and had tickets waiting for ‘Branjelina' just in case they called - I am sure they will have been wishing us luck against Szeged!